Cinema Experts

“You see, before he came down here, it never snowed. And afterwards, it did. If he weren't up there now... I don't think it would be snowing. Sometimes you can still catch me dancing in it.”
Tim Burton is a brilliant visual director but with Edward Scissorhands he managed to combine these talents with pure, classic storytelling and serving up a convincingly detailed left-of-center fairytale romance.
The story is fairly basic, being the standard Frankenstein-esque tale of alienation and the empowerment of love. Edward (Johnny Depp) is a lonely man with scissors for hands, crafted by an eccentric inventor (magnificently played by Vincent Price in flashbacks) prior to his death. After Edward witnesses the death of his creator he stays locked away inside his mansion all day, which is located atop the otherwise cheerfully picture-perfect local neighborhood community.
Then one day a nosy neighbor decides to investigate, and ends up bringing Edward to reality. He falls in love with a local girl (Winona Ryder), and is witness first-hand to the joys of life, until accidentally injuring a young boy and becoming the enemy of the overzealous town. Soon everyone is out to get him for no good reason – the climax is beautifully done and, because Burton has allowed his characters to expand so much, it's also very touching.
The movie is decidedly odd but in a good way – the only problem is that it is occasionally quite thin when it comes to actual depth. Burton's never been as good at telling believable stories as he has mythical, exciting fables. The mix of screwball dark comedy, horror, drama, romance and elements and familiar happenings of other genres results in a very different combination. You can literally "feel" the vibe of this picture, its heart pulsing black blood.
The movie was a childhood project of Burton, who drew sketches of Edward as a boy and used to alienate himself from his hostile surroundings by taking refuge in fictional stories involving the scissor-handed hero. As a result Burton's true affinity for the subject is evident – it's clear that he takes this entire project very seriously.
The acting is marvelous – Depp's performance is one of his finest and, arguably, one of the most convincing and fun of all-time. Depp has formed a Scorsese/De Niro-like companionship with Burton over the years, teaming up for various pictures (including Sleepy Hollow and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). He's always had fun relishing his over-the-top and absurdly dark roles, such as Ichabod Crane in particular. In Scissorhands he gives the equivalent of a Travis Bickle – a man who feels shunned by society, only to open his heart and have it feel crushed again. This is possibly one of the reasons the film is able to affect its audience so well to this very day. The tale does not grow old because the values are timeless.
Edward Scissorhands, despite its occasional flaws, finally gave Burton the chance to unleash his talents as a visual filmmaker along with a pretty solid story mold – the result being a sublimely dark rom-com-drama that never conforms to the typical genre clichés and becomes quite a unique film in its own little world… 9/10

“Help me Charlie, I wanna sing for no reason.”
Charlie is a successful and affluent bachelor in his mid-thirties who has a career writing advertisement jingles. Charlie resides in a large ocean front home in Malibu, California, and is portrayed as a chauvinist womanizer. The plot begins when his uptight brother Alan becomes divorced from his wife, loses his house to her and has to move in with his brother. His 10-year-old son (now 14) Jake often stays for weekends and at other times.
Rose is Charlie's zany neighbor and female stalker. We learn Rose had a one-night-stand with Charlie shortly before the show started and keeps entering his house through the patio in the most inopportune moments, expressing her ambition of obtaining Charlie, and often serving as a good albeit crazy friend and advisor. Although obviously troubled herself, Rose has stated a few times that she has a Master's degree in psychology. In various episodes it is insinuated that Rose is very slowly orchestrating a psychological plan to win Charlie back. Early in the series she's heard to say (to herself) "Phase one, complete".
In one episode, Rose's father, Harvey, asks Charlie of his intentions with his daughter after an apparent second one-night-stand between the two. Harvey then meets Charlie's and Alan's mother and has an affair with her, stalking her and popping in just like his daughter does. We then learn from Harvey's mother that "that's what happens when you marry a first cousin," explaining Rose's family's dementia soon after Rose revealing the one-night-stand was not real; they only woke up together.
Another important recurring character is Berta, the sarcastic cleaning lady with an acid tongue.
Alan and Charlie's mother, Evelyn (Holland Taylor) is a hip, wealthy, early-sixties, many-times-divorced, slightly slutty, controlling mother of the brothers. Charlie and Alan attribute their life's problems to the dark manipulative force their mother manages to exert upon them even now, adding to the caustic humor of the show in the situations when depicting their vain attempts to escape her.
Another recurring theme is the conflict of personalities between the two diametrically opposed siblings, the relaxed, good-life, woman-catching, commitment-phobic Charlie and the uptight self-conscious nerdy Alan. Alan can sometimes appear to be jealous of Charlie's lifestyle, and can sometimes try to stop Charlie's decisions. This also provides opportunities for comedy in the show, with Alan saying comments such as 'it's like talking to a horny chimp', or 'it's like trying to talk Shakespeare to a Hershey bar'... 10/10